Public Speaking Thirty Years Later

Many years ago, one of my full-time jobs was working at The Cittone Institute in Edison, New Jersey.  It was  a business and technical school and I was hired to go to high schools and talk about the careers we had, give out information, and bring home leads of possible future enrollments.  Public speaking is what I did and I gave thousands of talks to high school students.  I also gave some motivational talks at the school I worked for.

This past week, I gave my first two presentations about my book, one in a retirement home and the other to a Rotary Club.  The retirement community had about 25 people and they were an easy group to speak with. The first two people I spoke to before we started were from New York and New Jersey so I knew this would be pretty easy. The staff had set-up some snacks and wine and I spoke for a good 45 minutes. Below is a picture taken and although it looks like I'm selling the chair, I was not.  Half way through I pulled my mannequin, Lily, out of a bag and explained how my passenger gave it to me as a gift.  A few people asked questions and a couple bought books-it was a very nice afternoon.

My second talk was at a restaurant in front of a smaller group of Rotary members in North Myrtle Beach at the Mellow Mushroom restaurant. There were a number of people in the group from the northeast, so I felt right at home. My friend Neal, also an Uber driver, took these two pictures.  The first one was me clowning around before we got started with the yellow mushroom or maybe a peanut, behind me.  It looks like the pizza is coming out of my head.

It was a shorter talk than the first one and I told a couple stories from North Myrtle Beach.  I sold three books and had three people in my car afterwards showing off my museum.  They bought me dinner and I got to hear all the good things they were working on to make things better in the community.  Below is the action shot of me talking with the group and the pizza is still coming out of my head.  I kept Lily in the car for this one, but she will be on a table this Sunday when I do a small book event in North Charleston on Sunday.